The present invention relates to a particular security seal.
Security seals in which a band or a strip provided with latching means is pushed through a receiving opening located on the end of a band or strip and prevented from sliding out by retaining means mounted in the receiving opening are known for example from WO 95/27968. There, a seal is shown that has a flat basic body with a push-through opening aligned perpendicularly to the surface. A wrapping body in the form of a flat tongue or tab is formed directly on the basic body perpendicularly to the push-through direction and pointing away. The end of this tongue can be introduced in one direction into the push-through opening and pushed through. A loop is formed whose size, in other words whose diameter, can be influenced by the size of the push-through length. With increasing push-through length this loop becomes smaller. Since the retaining means in the push-through opening prevents the tongue from being pulled back, the tongue must be separated to open the loop. For this purpose, a tear-off area is provided on the tongue in this publication; this area is provided by two grooves that run transversely through the surface of the tongue and serve as tear-off grooves. In this tear-off area an outwardly projecting gripping tab is formed on which the tear-off area for tearing off can be kept. In order to make an attempt to manipulate the seal more difficult, provision is made such that the retaining means are inserted into an appropriately designed housing on the seal transversely to the push-through direction of the tongue. This is intended to prevent the retaining means which usually is accommodated in an opening in the housing in the push-through direction from being simply ripped out and then replaced.
This solution has the disadvantage that the design of the housing is relatively complicated and the insertion of the retaining means, especially in mass production, involves additional cost. If a smooth tongue is used, instead of the tongue shown and provided with retaining elements, this tongue will break under tensile stress at the same point as described below and the same disadvantages will occur.
Similar seals are also known from EP-A-0 398 562, EP-A-0 073 633, and GB-2 106 840. These seals all have in common one or more grooves designed as rip-open tabs which, when ripped open, each open the lock of the seal completely and are not intended as manipulation indications but as opening means.
In addition, pull-through security seals are also known in which the tongue has a rectangular or dumbbell-shaped cross section. Tongues of this kind can be pulled through to any position through the push-through opening, in other words the diameter of the loop formed by the seal can be adjusted continuously in contrast to the solutions with latching means in the form of notches, for example. The disadvantage of these solutions is that the tongue always breaks at the same place under tensile stress, namely at the location of the retaining means of the push-through opening since it is at that point that the cross section of the tongue is weakened by these means, conventionally knifelike means, engaging the tongue. This means that such seals are simple to manipulate. If they are ripped open they can be closed again simply after opening with the torn-off end of the tongue being inserted once again in the push-through opening and the other end of the torn-off tongue part being introduced from the other side into the push-through opening again. By introducing the end of the tongue into the push-through opening, the original tearing force of the seal closure is restored so that this manipulation can withstand a superficial examination at any time.
The goal of the present invention is to find a pull-through security seal that can be adjusted continuously in this manner and which has a high level of security against manipulation.
This goal is achieved according to the invention with a pull-through security seal with certain features reflected in the claims.
The specified breaking location between the body of the seal and the retaining element advantageously means that the closed seal, when a manipulation attempt is made, does not break at the tongue in the push-through opening but only at the specified breaking location which makes it impossible to conceal the manipulation attempt. The specified breaking location cannot be restored quickly and simply after it has been torn apart. In addition, even after the specified breaking location breaks, the seal is still closed and must now be deliberately broken apart and thus destroyed.
Preferably, a clear marking is applied over the specified breaking location. Such a marking makes it possible to check advantageously quickly whether a manipulation attempt on the closed seal has been made. This makes it impossible to replace the tongue part and retaining part with new intact parts and thus conceal the manipulation. In simple fashion, it can then be determined optically whether such a manipulation attempt or actual manipulations have been made.
An embodiment of the security seal according to the invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the figures in the attached drawings.